“Here, George, where are you, George?”

“Here I be, sir.”

“Ah, yes; then why didn’t you say so?  I have been shouting myself hoarse for you.”

“Yis, Squire,” replied the imperturbable George, “I hev been a-standing here for the last ten minutes, and I heard you.”

“You heard me, then why the dickens didn’t you answer?”

“Because I didn’t think as you wanted me, sir.  I saw that you hadn’t finished your letter.”

“Well, then, you ought to.  You know very well that my chest is weak, and yet I have to go hallooing all over the place after you.  Now look here, have you got that fat pony of yours in the yard?”

“Yis, Squire, the pony is here, and if so be as it is fat it bean’t for the want of movement.”

“Very well, then, take this letter,” and he handed him an epistle sealed with a tremendous seal, “take this letter to Mr. Quest at Boisingham, and wait for an answer.  And look here, mind you are about the place at eleven o’clock, for I expect Mr. Quest to see me about the Moat Farm.”

“Yis, Squire.”

“I suppose that you have heard nothing more from Janter, have you?”

“No, Squire, nawthing.  He means to git the place at his own price or chuck it.”

“And what is his price?”

“Five shillings an acre.  You see, sir, it’s this way.  That army gent, Major Boston, as is agent for all the College lands down the valley, he be a poor weak fule, and when all these tinants come to him and say that they must either hev the land at five shillings an acre or go, he gits scared, he du, and down goes the rent of some of the best meadow land in the country from thirty-five shillings to five.  Of course it don’t signify to him not a halfpenny, the College must pay him his salary all the same, and he don’t know no more about farming, nor land, nor northing, than my old mare yinder.  Well, and what comes of it?  Of course every tinant on the place hears that those College lands be going for five shillings an acre, and they prick up their ears and say they must have their land at the same figger, and it’s all owing to that Boston varmint, who ought to be kicked through every holl on the place and then drowned to dead in a dyke.”

“Yes, you’re right there, George, that silly man is a public enemy, and ought to be treated as such, but the times are very bad, with corn down to twenty-nine, very bad.”

“I’m not a-saying that they ain’t bad, Squire,” said his retainer, his long face lighting up; “they are bad, cruel bad, bad for iverybody.  And I’m not denying that they is bad for the tinants, but if they is bad for the tinants they is wus for the landlord.  It all comes on his shoulders in the long run.  If men find they can get land at five shillings an acre that’s worth twenty, why it isn’t in human natur to pay twenty, and if they find that the landlord must go as they drive him, of course they’ll lay on the whip.  Why, bless you, sir, when a tinant